The Shadows in Arizona's Desert

(The Grand Canyon)

I'm combing two factors into this blog, but they're connected - shadow people, and Arizona.

I've been cross country twice now. Both times my husband and I drove, and both were the southern route. So we drove from Northern California, down the state, then cut across to South Carolina. The first time was to move to South Carolina for my husband's job (January, 2017). The second time was to get back to our home in SC after visiting our hometown in Northern California (December, 2017). It was sort of a road-trip honeymoon the second time. The first time we were just trying to get through the country as fast as possible, and we had our pets with us. I'm using photos from the second time, since I didn't take many photos the first trip. However what happened to me is an experience in Arizona I had on our first cross country trip.

On both trips, I drove through Arizona. It's a beautiful state. The Grand Canyon is the most well-known area of the state to a majority of people. However, a lot of the state can be very isolated and eerie. I drove for hours in it without seeing a town, another car, and only desert.

There are canyons throughout the state, it's not all flat, but even seeing these beautiful, enormous rock formations can be bone-chilling. They're a nice change of scenery from the flat desert, but there's a lot of hidden buildings in those areas. I saw several hidden buildings up in the canyons. I know there was more too, I just got lucky seeing the few that I did based on the sunlight and shadows pointing them out. I have a photo as proof of one of them I saw.

(I didn't mess with this picture's coloring. It just naturally came out that way.)

It looks like a city in the hills, right? Well this wasn't. It had been at least an hour since I had seen any town, and usually when you're coming up on a town after such a long stretch of highway, there's tons of signs to advertise for gas, food, and lodging. This had no signs. If I hadn't been paying attention to the surrounding landscape, I would have missed it. I didn't see any off ramp to it either. If it somehow is a town in these canyons in the middle of no where, please let me know. However there wasn't any indicator of it being one. It may even have to do with oil or a construction site. There was no sign with anything about it so I don't know, and I couldn't drive up to it either to check.

This also wasn't the only one I saw. There were some far better hidden man-made, modern structures  tucked away inside the canyons that I wouldn't have been able to take a picture of. Some were very well camouflaged.

So what are all these concealed structures hidden in the canyons? I can only assume the military. Arizona is infested with military, particularly airforce. A lot of the civilians in the U.S. wonder what they're up to, hidden and sprawled around in the middle of no where through the desert. Many of you will know the name Roswell. That's in New Mexico (I actually stayed there on the same honeymoon trip, but there wasn't much of significance. They play up the alien theme though. It's a lovely town that I would be thrilled to visit again.). Well New Mexico and Arizona are very similar in geography. Both states are equally as mysterious and they definitely have some military life there that most people in this country have no idea about. 

This is a base I passed by quickly, thus the blurry photo. I could have blinked and it would have been gone. This base was in the middle of no where in AZ. It may be where they train new pilots. It definitely wouldn't be something too covert if you can see it from the highway. However, it is worth noting that there was no road to get off to this base around. The people who are stationed there must have a back way they enter it, because there was no off ramp from the highway. Now you can see there's a lot of strange military areas out there. It's a bizarre state. 

(A view from the window of the Arizona scenery)

Another sinister aspect to this state is just how many abandoned towns there are. I didn't get any photos of those that I can find, and if I did I'll insert them at a later date, but when you're driving on the highway then you see a block-sized town completely abandoned and in disarray, you get goosebumps. You come to the realization that real people settled down there, and left because of the lack of resources, or maybe were even told to leave. There were even some towns that looked abandoned, but then I'd see a trailer or two that were lived in. So people were living in an essential ghost town, miles away from any resources or other humans. It was abnormal to see.

So what does this have to do with shadow people? I mean, at this point you may assume I'd talk about aliens or government conspiracies. However, I'm not, well not really. I had an experience with a shadow person when I stayed in Arizona on the first road trip I went on. It was the only time I've ever experienced anything like that, and with how creepy this state can be be, it really makes me question why it happened. 

I didn't go into Arizona with a preconceived notion it would be some spine-chilling place. In fact, I did that with New Mexico. Arizona was considered to me a pretty innocent state before I went through it. I had even gone to Phoenix, AZ on a trip with my church years before, so if anything I had good memories of the area. I explain this because I have considered maybe I was subconsciously scared the evening it happened, and my brain reacted to this fear and came up with it. That very well could be a possibility.

(Blurry photo of some Arizona canyons)

I just wanted you to get a picture of the landscape and terrain of the area. I also have a ton of pictures of the Grand Canyon, random scenery shots from the highway, and some from the Petrified Forest State Park. I'll be inserting those throughout the blog, so you can stay in the mood of where I was when this happened. Remember, my experience happened a year prior to when these photos were taken. 

(There's a lot of wind power all through the southwest portion of the U.S.)

First, a shadow person is a being you see usually in the middle of the night, although some people see them in other areas, usually out of the corner of their eye - I'll be talking about seeing them in the middle of the night though. It's almost always accompanied with sleep paralysis, and there are several theories that go along with why people see them. Sleep paralysis is essentially when your mind is awake, but your body isn't. So you're consciously aware, but can't move. We'll go into all of the following theories of shadow people down below.

(The Grand Canyon - it truly is grand and it showed me how small I really am in this world)

Science has some theories on why seeing shadow people may happen. They say it may be from having your emotions in an increased, almost paranoid state, as you're in this vulnerable position of being essentially paralyzed. They also say another factor is it happens when sleep deprived. We start seeing hallucinations in the shape of something that can harm us, other humans. As someone on Wikipedia put it, you don't see shadow dogs or shadow birds, you see people. Most of us fear a human coming in and attacking us in our sleep, and that can dig its way into our subconscious. We wake up - whether it be in the vulnerable position of not being able to move, run, defend ourselves, or scream due to the sleep paralysis, or maybe we're coming off some drugs that have messed with our mind, or we've been exceptionally sleep deprived and that's messed with our head - and our fear comes to life in our brains with this hallucination of someone standing there, looming over us, or walking up to us. Another possibility is maybe we see a random shadow projecting from something in the room, and our brain is trying to figure out what it is so it comes up with the shape of a person. That may be out of fear, or just familiarity as our brain wants to recognize the shadow's shape. 

Then there are more supernatural explanations. One popular theory among religious individuals is demons - watching you while you sleep, maybe even trying to possess your body. They have been thought to attack you while you're in a helpless state, and create fear. Fear weakens an individual, and that can play on their faith. Demons want this.

Similar to demons, but not quite so malevolent, is the theory of ghosts. The difference here is one was once living. It could be a curious ghost just studying you. It could be a depressed ghost watching you with sadness and envy because it lost its life too soon. It could be a ghost wanting to find a way inside you to live out its life again, similar to the premise of Insidious. It may even be a loved one who's going to check up on you - in your half-conscious state you could just be closer to the other side and can see them more clearly. Although ghost do tend to be seen in more of a white, transparent light, versus a dark shadow. 

Here we'll get into more bizarre theories. There may be more than I list though. I'm doing this mainly from memory from various YouTube videos I've seen on the subject in the past. 

One is creatures from other dimensions. Or more accurately humans from other dimensions (at least humanly shaped creatures). The thought is that there are multiple universes, and sometimes they connect. A thought that's always crossed my mind is I can be sitting in a room, writing my blog, and in another dimension in the same place, there's a highway, or meadow filled with people. We're both unaware the other exist, but we're both living our lives in our own dimension, yet in the same place. I could write a whole blog post on dimensions and different theories on how they may work, it's a rabbit hole to fall into. 

There are a couple of theories on dimensions. I'll very quickly scrape over the surface of them. The first is that there are other universes. Like I put earlier, they have different creatures living in another realm to us that we can't get to or see. The second is these dimensions are different versions of ourselves, each being a different timeline of life events that happens after every decision we make. Essentially, I say yes in this dimension, and no in another, and like the butterfly effect it spirals me into different outcomes and life events. *spoilers* Think of that scene from the new Avengers movie (Endgame) where the Ancient One says if the Hulk takes her stone and doesn't return it, it will destroy her reality, but save his. The concept is similar to that way of thinking. 

Perhaps the shadow beings are us peeking into our alternate lives. Or if we're going with the first theory, other creatures from these different realms are looking in on us. Maybe they're even unaware we're there, or we're the shadow people to them.

Astral projecting is another possibility. This is where you have an out of body experience when you're asleep. Again, think of the premise of the movie Insidious. The little boy astral projects in this story. His being leaves his physical body as he sleeps. There are two theories involved with this one. Either this shadow person is you looking in on yourself, (however this theory doesn't make much sense because if your astral self is watching your body sleep, then you wouldn't have another consciousness in your body to be aware there's a shadow creature watching you). The other theory is it's someone else's astral projection watching you. This could be an innocent occurrence, with it just poking around and you coincidentally seeing it, or it could be an astral being of someone who wants to harm you, or spy on you. 

(A small river at the bottom of the canyon, you can see it leads to an even bigger river too)

(A gorge at the bottom of the canyon)

(There are trees growing up the side of the canyon, you can really see the height here of how far down the Grand Canyon goes)

Time travelers has been considered another possibility. Some people think that humans of the future have figured out a way to travel through time. This theory is where time travelers are the shadow people. They want to watch and observe humans from different time periods (shadow creatures have always been a prevalent subject, even among old legends and folklore). They don't want to be recognized or seen but are sometimes caught observing us. Perhaps their technology gives away from disguising or hiding them and that's when we see them as a shadow person.

(Petrified Forest State Park)

(Another spot in the park)

(Whipple Point in the park)

The last, and probably the most famous theory, is aliens. Aliens are extraterrestrial beings from other planets. It's a long debate on whether they're real, if they're watching us, how advanced is their technology if they are, and if the powerful governments of this world are in on it. Aliens are another rabbit hole you can fall into, but some people theorize they have other worldly powers. That they have the ability to go through humankind structures and objects, or that they are telepathic in some way. Many people theorize that this is them, watching and studying us. 

(Arizona Desert)

I'm sorry if you know all of these theories and it's just a repetition of information for you. I wanted to bring them all up to connect the theories with where I was when my experience occurred. In particular the alien theory, which some people believe are hidden out in the Arizona and New Mexico deserts. There have been bizarre sightings of them in areas like these, although others argue it's just where secret military technology is being tested. Whatever the theory, it doesn't change the very real thing that happened to me.

My husband and I stayed in Flagstaff, AZ on our way to our new home. We got a pet friendly hotel. It was called Hotel Aspen and it was an adorable, quaint room. Everything was normal that night. The trip was going smooth. We got Taco Bell for dinner, and I walked my dog around in the snow for awhile to get her energy out. The people were friendly and I wasn't getting any weird vibes from the towns people or room. In fact, I love cozy rooms so I was happy we were staying there.

That night, I slept on the right side of the bed. I purposely wanted to be by the window. Although the curtains were fully shut, it's always made me feel less claustrophobic. That night I fell asleep after awhile, and woke up in the middle of night. I'm not sure what time it was.

I've had sleep paralysis a few times in my life. It's not how most people claim it is, at least when I experience it. I can't move, and I am conscious, but only somewhat. I'm in a bit of a dazed fog, and I often keep passing out and waking up over and over without the ability to move my body. Some people make it out to be like you're fully conscious and just stuck there. While this may be true for others, I know I'm not fully conscious. That would have made this experience far more terrifying.

I woke up and saw a shadow person right by the door. It was in the corner, past the window, in the shadow of the door. It was normal height, not too tall or short, and was just staring at me. I mean, of course you can't see its face or anything since it's a shadow, but it was faced in my direction, and it's like I could feel it staring at me.

I couldn't move and could only see this thing through my blurred mind and foggy eyes. I passed out and woke up a few seconds later to find it still there, facing me. This happened about a half a dozen times. It wasn't right on the foot of the bed, or looming over me, it was just in the corner by the door and window. It would be an extremely scary story if I were to say it kept getting closer to me each time I woke up. But no, it just stood there in the same spot. It didn't go away until I passed out for good for the night, and woke up the next morning.

There are some logical explanations to this phenomenon I had. Perhaps it was just a shadow emanated from something outside that I hadn't seen during the daylight, and my brain made it out to be a person. Like a trick of the eye in my half-sleep, vulnerable state. And that could be it. I did take a little while to go to bed that night though. I stared over that way for about thirty minutes in the dark after I had turned out the lights, and didn't see anything when falling asleep. It also wasn't right in front of the window, it was in front of the door. It was in the shadow's already, it was just a darker shadow. Maybe I was sleep deprived from the stress of moving, which is also another valid possibility. It just looked like such a human, but only their shadow. Like Peter Pan's shadow followed me to that hotel that night. Its silhouette didn't look like or similar to a human, it looked exactly like a human. It also felt like a human - it felt like there was another being in that room watching me. I don't know how else to put it, and I don't know what the right answer is. All I know is I've never seen anything like it before, even when experiencing sleep paralysis in the past. I also haven't experienced anything like it since, and hope I don't again. 

I've stopped sleeping on the window side of the bed whenever staying at a hotel too. I especially avoided it when I went the next year and stayed near the Grand Canyon.

Arizona is a mystical state, and I will go visit again. The endless desert and high canyons are captivating. You will never see a sunset quite like the sunsets out there. The sky transitions so well with various, mystifying colors that blend from the orange, lowering sun, into the deep blue, night sky. But I'll never forget the experience I had there, in Flagstaff. It's one thing to read about it, and hear other people's stories, but to go through it is a whole different, unreal experience that you can never fully explain quite right. Whether there's a scientific explanation or not, it was a very real, terrifying experience to go through. I'll return to the state, and enjoy seeing its' beauty, but it will always be in the back of my mind of my experience with the shadows that show up in the desert at night.